Live DC: The Wild Feathers @ U Hall

It’s hard to know where a three-guitar twangy heartland rock band fits in the American musical landscape of 2014. The recent vogue in indie folk has happily provided enough cultural space for bands like The Wild Feathers to get their deserved day in the sunlight. They have beards and play acoustic guitars – same deal, right? They’re also an avenue for assholes (like myself) to quietly indulge the fact that we totally love country music, but fear the unpleasant red state associations that come with heartily embracing commercial country.

But then again, who really cares? I spent the first half of The Wild Feathers’ set worried about the white cultural privilege inherent in embracing throwback guitar rock, and then I spent the second half of the show actually enjoying myself.

To say this band is retro mostly misses the point, because I assume that these sounds are far less retro in the twin environs of Austin and Nashville, from whence The Wild Feathers spring (though I have no idea). Comparisons to Tom Petty get thrown around a lot when people write about this band, but they strike me as much more at home in the space between the Eagles and The Allman Brothers – in that druggy, mellow early-70s period where mildly-stoned boogie rock and plaintive balladry happily coexisted.

The basic idea at hand is four lead singers all sharing vocal duties. The slight flatness of the band on record is totally erased when you hear all four voices blend richly on stage. The band’s specialty isn’t delicate harmonies so much as a full-throated shout – four singers pushing their voices much more forcefully than their instruments.

The band’s three lead vocalists — Joel King, Ricky Young, and Taylor Burns – are also (thankfully) not sound-alikes. Young is clear and blunt, Burns is twangy and rich, and King packs a mean, punky growl and a really compelling Rick Danko impression. As they trade off from song to song, it makes for great fun watching them weave around each other, even if some aren’t exactly stellar showmen. My notes from the show are full of rapid changes of heart as to which singer I thought was the best.

The setlist covered pretty much all of the band’s debut album, plus a totally-fantastic cover of Zeppelin’s “Hey Hey What Can I Do” and a rather perfunctory (but well-received) take on The Band’s “The Weight.” There was a new song too – which I can only presume was called “Happy” – that showcased Taylor Burns’ warmly-accented vocals (his best moments recall the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson).

“I’m Alive” is a fantastic piece of propulsive power pop, bringing to mind Cheap Trick in their heyday or (yes) Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. And, as if to further drive home the fact that these guys are Led Zeppelin fans, Burns played an electric 12-string guitar (think “Stairway to Heaven”) for much of the set. I was charmed.

This was also a slightly older crowd – late-20s median? – as evidenced by the relative paucity of annoying cell phones being held aloft during much of the show. It was also kind of a shitty crowd, or at least one who felt the need to largely flee show the show once the lock hit 11 (I know, it’s late, and we all have very important jobs).

While the band is maybe still too (admirably) anchored in their influences to be a breakout pop act, I expect big, awesome things from them.

Violent Femmes 10th studio album, HOTEL LAST RESORT, resides among the groundbreaking band’s finest work, simultaneously refining and redefining their one-of-a-kind take on American music, mingling front porch folk, post punk, spiritual jazz, country blues, avant garde minimalism and golden age rock ‘n’ roll into something still altogether their own. Founded and fronted of course by singer/guitarist Gordon Gano and acoustic bass guitarist Brian Ritchie, the Milwaukee-born combo remains as warm, wise and weird as ever before, with such new favorites as “Another Chorus” and “Everlasting You” continuing to mine the vast range of ideas, melodic complexity and organic sonic craftsmanship that has characterized the band’s body of work since their landmark self-titled 1983 debut.

Formed in 1977, X quickly established themselves as one of the best bands in the first wave of LA’s flourishing punk scene; becoming legendary leaders of a punk generation. Featuring vocalist Exene Cervenka, vocalist/bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom, and drummer DJ Bonebrake, their debut 45 was released on the seminal Dangerhouse label in 1978, followed by seven studio albums released from 1980-1993. Over the years, the band has released several critically acclaimed albums, topped the musical charts with regularity and performed their iconic hits on top television shows such as Letterman and American Bandstand. X’s first two studio albums, Los Angeles and Wild Gift are ranked by Rolling Stone among the top 500 greatest albums of all time. The band continues to tour with the original line-up fully intact. In 2017, the band celebrated their 40th yearanniversary in music with a Grammy Museum exhibit opening, a Proclamation from the City of Los Angeles and being honored at a Los Angeles Dodgers game where Exene threw out the first pitch and John Doe sang the National Anthem. In 2020, X celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Los Angeles.

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Today NYC-via-Seoul electronic producer, DJ, and vocalist Yaeji has announced the release of a new mixtape titled WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던, due out April 2 on XL Recordings. To

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Today NYC-via-Seoul electronic producer, DJ, and vocalist Yaeji has announced the release of a new mixtape titled WHAT WE DREW 우리가 그려왔던, due out April 2 on XL Recordings. To introduce the new project, her first full-length mixtape and release on XL, Yaeji has shared a new animated music video for the lead single “WAKING UP DOWN.” It’s also been announced that this Summer Yaeji will perform live across North America and Europe in which she’ll debut an all-new live show featuring dancers, original choreography and new stage production.

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slowthai knew the title of his album long before he wrote a single bar of it. He knew he wanted the record to speak candidly about his upbringing on the

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slowthai knew the title of his album long before he wrote a single bar of it. He knew he wanted the record to speak candidly about his upbringing on the council estates of Northampton, and for it to advocate for community in a country increasingly mired in fear and insularity. Three years since the phrase first appeared in his breakout track ‘Jiggle’, Tyron Frampton presents his incendiary debut ‘Nothing Great About Britain’.

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Ed O’Brien never planned to make a solo record. As guitarist with Radiohead, who over almost three decades and nine albums have established themselves as one of the most innovative

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Ed O’Brien never planned to make a solo record. As guitarist with Radiohead, who over almost three decades and nine albums have established themselves as one of the most innovative and influential musical forces of our time, he thought his artistic side had its outlet and was happy to spend any downtime from Radiohead with his family. Plus, he wondered, would it really be necessary? “Thom, Jonny and Phillip are making music,” he says, “and I’m like, ‘The last thing the world needs is a shit album by me.’”

But suddenly a switch was flicked and the songs came pouring out of him. That creative surge resulted in an album of rediscovery and adventure by O’Brien under the moniker EOB that deftly veers from moments of delicate folk to euphoric house, its songs seamlessly pinned together by unswerving melodic hooks and candid lyricism.

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This album was made from January 2015 to December 2019, starting as a collection of vague ideas that eventually turned into songs. I wanted to make something that was different

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This album was made from January 2015 to December 2019, starting as a collection of vague ideas that eventually turned into songs. I wanted to make something that was different from my previous records, and I struggled to figure out how to do that. I realized that because the way I listened to music had changed, I had to change the way I wrote music, as well. I was listening less and less to albums and more and more to individual songs, songs from all over the place, every few days finding a new one that seemed to have a special energy. I thought that if I could make an album full of songs that had a special energy, each one unique and different in its vision, then that would be a good thing.Andrew, Ethan, Seth and I started going into the studio to record songs that had more finished structures and jam on ideas that didn’t. Then I would mess with the recordings until I could see my way to a song. Most of the time on this album was spent shuttling between my house and Andrew’s, who did a lot of the mixing on this. He comes from an EDM school of mixing, so we built up sample-heavy beat-driven songs that could work to both of our strengths.

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Growing up in suburban New Jersey, 23-year-old singer, songwriter and producer Jeremy Zucker has always been surrounded by music. In 2015, he released his first EP as a freshman at

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Growing up in suburban New Jersey, 23-year-old singer, songwriter and producer Jeremy Zucker has always been surrounded by music. In 2015, he released his first EP as a freshman at Colorado College pursuing a degree in Molecular Biology, and by 2017 he had signed a major label record deal with Republic Records. Since then, he has released 4 EP’s with breakthrough singles such as “talk is overrated” featuring blackbear, “all the kids are depressed,” and his biggest song to date, the Gold-Certified hit “comethru”. Overall, Zucker has already crossed over a staggering 1 billion total streams on his catalogue as he gears up for his debut album, coming early 2020.